Second Midterm POLI 381 Intro to International Relations Flashcards
Constructivism
- Post positivist approach, critique of the scientific positivist approach
- Act brings a subject/object in to being that otherwise wouldn’t exist
- Social theory, not a substantive theory. Doesn’t make claims about patterns of of world politics.
- Conceptualize agent structure relationship
- Best compared with Rational choice: framework for how actors operate with fixed preferences that they attempt to maximize under a set of constraints.
- Concerned with human consciousness and its role in international life.
- Social construction of actors, identities, interests. Actors produced by cultural environment
- Commitment to Idealism ( role of ideas in IR) and Holism or Structuralism ( can’t be broken down in to already existing factors, actors construct, reproduce and transform IR structure through interaction
- DOES NOT REJECT MATERIAL REALITY: but meaning and construction depend on interpretation
Practices
-In constructivism practices are socially meaningful patterns of action which in being performed more/less competently serve to produce and reproduce background knowledge and discourse
Norms
- Regulative: regulate already existing activities
- Constitutive: create possibility for these for these activities to exist
- Institutionalization : how much they are taken for granted. rules are not static so they change to guide construct and constrain the identity and interests of actors
Alexander Wendt
- Anarchy is What States Make of it 1992
- Start of constructivism
- Challenged neorealists and neoliberals view that identity and interests are given as they are defined by anarchy
- interests are not given but rather instead identities are the basis for interests and actors define interests in the process of defining situations.
- Actors, CAN change through self reflection and practices specifically designed to transform their identities and interests
Alexander Wendt on Institutions
- Static sets of structures of identities and interests.
- Often codified as rules or norms but only have motivational force by virtue of actors socialization/participation in collective knowledge aka their identity
Critiques of Structural Realism in General
- Functional non differentiation between states
- Anarchy
- Distribution of Power
John Ruggie’s Critiques of Neorealism
- International system is organized differently at different times
- Modern way of thinking only includes feudalism and the Westphalian system
- Neglected sovereignty, the defining principle of modern state system
Richard Ashley Critique of Neorealism
- devoid of ideas, beliefs and values,
- treats basic concepts of international relations such as sovereignty as natural
- Fail to recognize how socially and culturally produced within a historical context
Agent Structure Problem
- Alexander Wendt 1987
- How to conceptualize the relationship between agents (states) and structures (international structure)
Three Themes of Construtivism
1) Social construction suggests differences across context rather than a single objective reality. Change is possible
2) Constructivists emphasized social dimension of IR and have demonstrated the importance of norms, rules and language at this level
3) International politics is a world of our making
Ontology
- Nature of being, focus on the types of objects the world is composed of
- Social: Individuals or states cannot be separated from context of normative meaning, shapes who they are and possibilities available to them
Normative v.s Positive
-Constructivism is normative value based or subjective ideal standard or model. opinion based ie) can’t prove or disprove. Role of culture, shared values, institutions that are constituve of social structure and social cohesion
Positive: objective or fact Sbased
Realist and Liberal View on Structure
- Function of competition and distribution of material capabilities
- Structure constrains, states guided by logic of consequences, that is, a rational act is an outcome that maximizes best preferences
Constructivist View on Structure
- Not only constrains but constitutes the identity of actors
- Focus more on norms/shared understandings of legit behavior.
- Material factors also play a role and subjects are guided by logic of appropriateness (what is rational is a function of legitimacy where legitimacy is defined by shared vales/norms within institutions or other social structures rather than purely individual.)
- Right thing in terms of your own identity rather than man given preferences
Mutual Constitution
- Alexander Wendt
- Not that states in anarchy can on a whim change their circumstance BUT RATHER relationships evolve over time
- States not characterized across the board
- Relationships are a product of historical processes and interactions over time, each exercise has an element of choice or agency in how the relationship develops.
- Space for choice is mutually constituted, focus on SHARED understandings as well as relationship between agent and structure
Social Facts
- Realists and Liberals assume that a static world of a-social egoists who are primarily concerned with material interests
- C’s depend on human agreement. Require human institutions for their exercise. 5$ bill example
Power
- Ability of one state to compel another to do what it otherwise wouldn’t
- Constructivists add an ideational component to the material component: legitimacy
- How the fixing of meaning and construction of identities allocate differential rewards and capacities
- Ideas persuade rather than compel, ability to persuade dependent on identity
Episteomology
-Origin and nature of knowledge
Role of Cognition
- Positivist: objects exist independently of meaning and words just act as labels
- Hypothesis testing represents the assumption about language
-Constructivist: accept an epistemology indebted to positivism, which includes hypothesis testing, causality and explanation but their main dispute is with ontology: nature of being focuses on the types of objects the world is made up of. Social identity
Constructivists accept positivist epistemology accept causality, hypothesis testing and objective truths. Bridges gaps and allows for some debates
Issues with Constructivism Accepting Positivist Epistemology
1) The degree to which they can deduce stable hypotheses. Argue it is doable but hard to come up with examples
2) Whether or not combining social being (ontology) with empirical approach works to generation of objective knowledge.
What does Constructivism bring to IR?
- Brings social aspect: role of identity, issues of culture
- Possibility of social change
- Challenges positivist theories in a way that has forced the positivist to refine their theoretical approaches
Speech Acts
- Utterances that have a performative function in language and communication
- Performative: not passively describing a given reality but are changing social reality they are describing
Securitization
- Ole Waever
- Examines how language by an actor transforms something in to a matter of security
1) Securitizing actor or agent: an entity that makes the securitizing move/statement
2) Referent object, object that is being threatened and needs to be protected
3) Audience is the target of securitization act that needs to be persuaded and accept the issue as a security threat - Doesn’t mean the issue is of necessity to be dealt with anybody can do it but takes an authoritative figure.
- Multiple sectors where securitization can occur
3 Cultures of Anarchy
- Alexander Wendt
- Enemy: Hobbesian war against all
- Rival: Lockean sovereignty, life, liberty,
- Friendship: Kantian dispute = peaceful resolution
Constructivism and Global Change
-World orders created and sustained only by great power preferences but changing understandings of what constitutes a great power
Post Structuralism
- Post positivist, structures constituted through human action
- Language is essential to how we make sense of the world
- Do not accept material facts unlike constructivists
- Discourse, deconstruction, genealogy, intertextuality
Michel Foucalt
Discourse
- Linguistic system that orders statements and concepts
- Words we use to describe something not neural
- choice of one over another has political implications
Discourse
- Language is social because you can’t make your thoughts understandable to others, without a shared set of codes
- Language produces meaning, things do not have an objective meaning independently of how we constitute them in language
Deconstruction
- Language set of codes, means that words or signs make sense only in relation to each other so the issue is the connection of the words or signs
- To see language as connected signs means language as a structure
- hence the structural in post structuralism
Jacques Derrida
Deconstruction
-Language is made up of dichotomies for example:
developed and under developed
modern and pre-modern
civilized and barbaric
-Dichotomies make something seem objectively described. Structured set of values. Words we use to describe are not value free
Genealogy
What political practices have formed the present and which alternative understandings and discourses have been marginalization and often forgotten
- Over time, things get left out
- Narrative
- Michel Foucalt: what political practices have formed the present and which alternative understandings and discourses have been marginalized
Intertextuality
- To see or understand the social world as comprised of text (which do not necessarily need to be words
- Texts for intertexts that are connected to the texts that came before them.
Narratives
- Forms of language or stories that shape our understanding of the world.
- Structure of power
- Include certain things and exclude others
- Post structuralists aim to uncover structures of power and reveal what is excluded
- Non-normative meaning it can identify what is excluded but won’t/can’t have the means for addressing what is excluded
- To prescribe something is creating another narrative, another power structure, no way to choose between various narratives for something is always excluded
Critical Theory
- Between constructivism and post structuralism
- Aims to be normative or emancipatory
- Empower that which is hidden or marginalized
- Emancipation of individuals has ramifications that play out on the international stage
State Sovereignty PS
- State the role it plays, not a unit
- Hierarchical subordination: each individual has a particular position in society.
- Inside-outside dichotomy. Sovereignty is this division , which is stabilized by a long series of other dichotomies
Identity as Performative
- Rational and performative, identities have no objective existence
- Depend on discursive practices
- Socially real but can’t maintain their realness
- Product and justifications for foreign polices